Bergen Pierson, LSW

Perhaps a change in your life is on the horizon or you are experiencing difficulties in your relationships. Maybe you feel stuck in familiar limiting patterns. Illness might be visiting your life and dashing your hopes and plans for the future. We will find our way out of these stuck places together. In session, we may explore the mind-body connection, examine coping habits, uncover relationship patterns, and honor parts of self. We might work to set boundaries, shift dynamics, and let go of things that no longer serve you. Your internal wisdom is our guide as we craft a treatment plan to reach your goals. We will use the therapeutic relationship as a secure space to process your experience—with particular attention paid to the regulating potential of your autonomic nervous system. My hope for you is to feel safely embodied and to create an authentic life, with healthy connections to others. We will leverage neuroplasticity using brain-based approaches--top-down (prefrontal cortex) and bottom-up (limbic system)--to notice and integrate implicitly held traumatic experiences, core beliefs, and fragments of self. I take a person-in-environment perspective, listening closely for how societal systems and historical forces shape lived experience. I am strengths-based, trauma-informed, and direct. I am passionate about exploring the role that human-animal-environmental interactions play in community and individual health. As a Lyme literate therapist, I offer support to individuals affected by Lyme disease and co-infections, as well as CIRS. A comprehensive support system is essential in managing these illnesses. As your therapist, I will help you process your diagnosis, identify mental health symptoms, develop coping skills, and find hope. If requested, I will consult with your medical provider. I graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts in 2011. I received a Master of Social Work at the Graduate School of Social Work, University of Denver in 2021, with a certificate in Human-Animal-Environment Interactions in Social Work, through the Institute for Human-Animal Connection at GSSW. In 2021, I passed the Association of Social Work Boards Clinical licensing exam and became licensed to practice in Colorado. For more information or to schedule a consultation, please send me an appointment request. Selected Trainings: • Certificate in Human-Animal-Environment Interactions in Social Work, Institute for Human-Animal Connection, Graduate School of Social Work University of Denver, 2021 • Seeds: Growth Conversations in Anti-Racism and Liberation, Building Bridges, 2020-2021 • Polyvagal Informed Therapy Master Class, Deb Dana, LCSW • Clinical Applications of Internal Family Systems, Frank Anderson, MD • Healing the Trauma that Surrounds Medical Syndromes, Lisa Rankin, MD, and Dick Schwartz, PhD • Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy, Jamie Marich, Ph.D., LPCC-S, REAT, RYT-500, EMDRIA approved